


Ripples

by Palefire73



Series: Loki Origins [43]
Category: Frigga - Fandom, Loki - Fandom, Thor - Fandom, Tyr - Fandom, odin - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Traditional Games, family traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 23:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palefire73/pseuds/Palefire73
Summary: Odin is an ancient being and holds a wealth of traditions, tales and wonders. One day he decides to teach his sons a game he was in turn taught by his own father. In doing so, certain traits that each would become famed for are exposed.





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ripples](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444410) by [Palefire73](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palefire73/pseuds/Palefire73). 

“Where are we going?”

The passing on of traditions and tales of those who have gone before us is one of the most important things that bind a family together. Odin had experienced much in his long life and he was quite happy to relate his tales to his children on occasion. He was also a great mischief deep down at heart, having a sense of humour that no one surpassed, and this was often demonstrated in the delight with which he took part in playing games. Games of all kinds: sports, puzzles, guessing games, games of chance or skill - Odin loved them all and on the rare occasions when he was free to spend leisure time with his family, he would be the one who suggested they have a little fun.

“Patience!”

These were the times that the Princes of Asgard built their fonder memories of Odin upon and there were a great many of them by the time they were grown men. Odin’s status as Protector of the Nine often meant he had to face the world as a stern and fearless King, but those who lived around him - especially his family - would sometimes be treated to his lighter side. Of course, the boys were always excited to see what this would mean he had in store, for although they would be playing something, Odin would use these games as part of his programme to edify the future kings of Asgard.

“But…”

“No, Loki. You will find out soon enough. Look, we are here anyway. Off you go!”

One of their favourite pastimes was to play games of physical skill, as they found them the most exciting when vying with each other. Victory was usually less dependent on strength, intelligence or judgement alone and so the competition was truly an open one; any of them could win, and Odin and Frigga had a whole catalogue of ideas for entertaining their sons. Some of them were dependent on being able to go outside and enjoy the lands around the Palace, for that is where their playground lay, and on one particularly fine day the King and his family made their way down through the terraces and to the shores of the great lake that lay at the foot of the Mountain of Asgard. As they left the grass and ventured onto the stony shore, the young princes broke into a run down to the water’s edge led by Loki, who was laughing excitedly. Before Queen Frigga could call out, he was halfway up to his knees in the water and stooped to splash Thor and Tyr who were only a few steps behind him.

“I got you!” Loki laughed, scooping up more water and sending it in the direction of his older brothers, “haha!” he squealed, before wading deeper and splashing even more water at them.

Odin and his Queen looked on in amusement as the water fight continued, but it was not long before Tyr and Thor joined forces in order to round on the over-excited seven year old Loki and started to drench him, whooping with delight. Just as the younger boy’s face fell and turned from laughter into something else entirely, she called out.

“My sons! That is enough now! Come back to the shore, please. You are men, not fish!”

After a few more splashes, the princes desisted and began to wade back towards their parents but Tyr’s foot became tangled in a bit of weed and he stumbled and fell onto his behind. A strong hand reached out and he grabbed it to be hoisted to his feet, “Thank you, brother,” he grinned as he clapped Thor on his arm and they followed Loki to join Odin and Frigga, who smiled bemusedly at the sodden boys. Frigga waved her hand in their general direction and Loki watched in fascination as their clothes quickly dried out with the help of her Seidr. He glanced at his brothers, but could tell that they could not see the golden sparkling dust motes that were emanating from her fingers and settling onto them to carry out the magical action of drying the wet clothing. He shrugged to himself; it was a shame they were not a party to the captivating sight, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. He smiled as his mother gave him a knowing glance and then he looked to his father, who had started to explain what they were here for.

“We are going to have a go at a game I was taught by my father, Bor; one that showed me what fun we could have, even away from the training grounds.” Odin looked down at Loki and they exchanged smiles, but the young boy almost stumbled forwards as Odin clapped his large hand on his shoulder. “I was but a stripling like you!” he laughed “But I still enjoyed it!”

Loki’s face creased in puzzlement, but Odin did not expand on the meaning of what he had said; instead he ruffled the youngster’s brown hair and pointed at the crystal blue waters of the lake. “That, my sons, is your field of sport. We are to play a game of skill!” Odin undid the golden buttons of his surcoat and shrugged it off. There was a log on the shore that looked as if it had been a healthy living tree very recently - perhaps it had fallen in a storm and been washed up to come to its final resting place. Odin placed his surcoat on it, indicating that the children should do the same with theirs, and then they and their mother sat down on it to see what was going to happen next.

For the next ten minutes or so, he paced up and down a short section of the shore, pausing occasionally to pick up a stone here and there, keeping some and discarding others. Just as Loki was getting a bit restless and Thor had pulled at Tyr’s braids once too often, the All Father returned to where they were sitting on the log waiting for him.

“My sons, come. We will now play the game!”

All three princes jumped up and raced to the waterline, eager to be shown this new game and to discover how well they could play it, and Odin strolled down after them smiling merrily at the sight of them as they skidded to a halt and awaited him impatiently.

“What are we doing, Faðir?” Asked Thor.

“Yes, what are we doing? You were staring at the ground and picking things up, but we do not know why!” Tyr was becoming increasingly curious as to what their Father was going to teach them today.

“The stones, the stones!” laughed Loki, pointing at Odin’s hand, in which he had espied one of the pebbles that littered the shore of the lake here. He grinned and looked to Odin to see if he was right.

“Yes, my astute little one, it is to do with the stones. I am going to teach you how to make them travel far across the surface of the water…”

“I know how to do that, Faðir!” exclaimed Thor, who picked up a particularly heavy lumpy stone and threw it in a high arc far out over the water, where it created an almighty plume of water as it broke the surface and disappeared into the depths, “There, it went really far!”

“Ah… yes, but your stone hit the water with a great splash and sank! This is where the skill part of the game comes in: if you are skilful enough, your stone will cross the water for a much greater distance before it eventually loses its momentum and sinks!”

There was a small silence as each of the boys considered his words and then he chuckled, “Let me show you and then you can decide what you think.” The boys watched their father as he placed his feet slightly apart and angled himself marginally away from the edge of the water. He bent one knee so he could lean into it and drew the arm on that side back. With a quick movement, he then threw the stone in a horizontal fashion and the eyes of the princes grew wide as they watched it skip once, twice, three times and just about a fourth before eventually breaking the surface of the lake and sinking into the crystal water.

Two seconds passed as they digested what their father had done and then there was a cacophony as they all announced they were having a go and set about choosing their own stones. After a few minutes they each selected a spot at the water’s edge and tried to copy what Odin had just demonstrated. Thor had not really listened much to his father’s advice about the type of stone that would be a better candidate for the job and was aiming with another large one – what many might call a rock perhaps. Tyr had gone for a pebble that looked rather like a lumpy flattened egg and was trying to judge the state of the water itself: was it better when the surface was calm or choppy, he wondered. Loki had decided he would see if the material the stone was made up of would give him any advantage; unlike Thor’s rough sandstone and Tyr’s coarse quartz-seamed granite, Loki had chosen basalt, a smoother material. Odin called “Throw!” and they all let loose.

Thor’s small boulder sailed high up in the air and sploshed into the lake, throwing up a giant splash of water as it hit, but the golden-haired youth was clearly pleased with his effort; he grinned madly and punched the air as he saw how far it had gone, even though it had hardly “skimmed” the surface. Tyr managed to get the action right and his face lit up with delight as the stone skipped twice in long low arcs before heading for the depths of the lake, but Loki’s attempt failed abysmally. He imitated Odin’s throw almost perfectly, but did not think about how he was holding the stone as he let it go, aiming it straight for the water rather than across it. He grimaced in annoyance, even more so as Thor jumped up and down with his perceived victory, but quickly looked for another candidate for throwing.

“I did it! I did it!” Yelled Thor, but his victory was short-lived as Odin explained that he was not just going for distance and that he was to try to get the stone to bounce along the very surface of the water.

“I believe a flatter stone will help you, my son,” said Odin, “If it has a large uniform area, then it will slap the water and bounce off it, rather than breaking the surface and sinking.” Thor pulled an unconvinced face, but he took Odin’s advice on board and started looking for another stone. Tyr thought about what had gone wrong with his throw and began to compare stones against each other, weighing up their properties of shape, surface texture and weight and trying to decide which would be a better candidate. Loki, in the meantime, picked up more of the flattened ovoid stones with a smooth surface and pocketed them. He went back to the edge to try again, but after a few failures he began to get frustrated. He was not the only one: while Tyr was getting better at the game, Thor was having no luck because he was still assuming a more powerful throw would get his stones further and was not really getting the finesse into his movements. The youngest Odinson prince decided to ask the King for his help and Odin elected to humour him.

“What you must do is find a stone to do the job. It must be a champion of stones! Smooth, flattened and oval, so that it fits in your palm… like so.” Odin placed a perfect stone in Loki’s seven year old hand and positioned his fingers in the right way. “You must not grip it tightly, yet you must control the moment at which it leaves your hand, it is the perfection of this which will determine how good you are at the game!”

The young brown haired Prince nodded at his instructions and tried to remember what he had seen him do. He planted his booted feet so that he stood at an angle to the waterline and bent one knee to stoop so he could gain a clear sight along the surface of the lake. Drawing his arm backwards, he then let the stone loose with as much force as he could , almost twirling around and falling over, but to his delight he watched the stone skip the surface once, twice, _almost_ three times and he began to feel that he could be quite good at this game after all.

Yet Thor was simply not getting anywhere and, with each successive sinking stone, the air around him became more and more charged and soon the surface of the lake began to grow agitated, as if some underwater giant was shaking it.

“Thor, my son?” Frigga joined Thor at the water’s edge.

The Prince of Asgard looked sheepishly at his mother and dropped the rock he was holding back onto the shore where he stood. He knew something was happening, but he did not quite know what to do about it and as he looked up at the sky, he could see the large storm clouds that had begun to form around the Mountain of Asgard just beyond the lake.

“Is that… is that me?” he asked her as she came to stand beside him.

“I believe it is, Thor. You are frustrated with the game?”

“Yes! No matter how hard I try…”

“Perhaps you should take a moment to draw breath and think about how to change what you are doing…”

“But I want to be victorious!” Thor’s voice broke as he vented his frustration and Odin, who had been helping Loki choose a stone, looked over to see what the fuss was about. Upon seeing the darkening sky above the Mountain of Asgard, his face became serious and he turned away from the younger boy intending to go over to Thor and intervene. Loki sensed a change in his father’s stance and realised that he was going to be left to play on his own, something he was rather upset about; Odin was always favouring Thor! The little boy looked down at the stone he had just picked up and realised it was an almost perfect candidate to achieve three skips; it just needed a little help. He quickly stroked it with his other hand and the sharp corner which would have spoiled its performance smoothed out as his blue Seidr flowed over it.

“Faðir! Look at this one!” His voice cut through Odin’s thoughts of approaching Thor and he glanced at Loki, who was holding out a particularly fine-looking skimming stone. He turned back to Thor, but Frigga shook her head and waved in Loki’s direction; it seemed she had the situation in hand. He held his hand out to Loki.

“Let me see it…”

Tyr joined Frigga at Thor’s side having felt the change in the air and he placed a reassuring hand on his brother’s arm. “Come, Thor, we can learn this game together.” He handed Thor a stone which was much more suited to the job they expected of it and hefted a similar one in his own hand, “Now, stand like me, with your feet about shoulder-width apart.” Thor copied him and the two brothers looked out across the lake, “Thor, you’re going to have to reign your power in; the waters need to be calmer if we are to get better at skimming our stones!”

“Yes brother, but I am not sure how to stop what is happening.”

“Take a deep breath and loosen up your shoulders, relax and allow your annoyance to melt away and hopefully that will help.” Tyr nodded at him reassuringly and Thor tried to calm himself. With an effort he blew out the air from his lungs and cleared his mind of any angry thoughts and, to his pleasant surprise, the grey of the clouds faded to a more pleasant fluffy white, reflecting the bright Asgardian Sun. The two princes joined their mother in having a go at skimming the stones and they each managed to get a couple of bounces in. Encouraged by this, they carried on, having fun and joking about each other’s performance.

Only a few feet away, Odin was having to admit he was impressed by Loki’s natural talent at this game; the youngster seemed to be able to identify perfect throwing stones, each weighted just right and with a surface that enhanced the contact with the water in a way that meant they skipped along in just the right way. It was not long before he was picking out targets for the young Jotúnn to try to hit and Loki became particularly excited after he managed to get four skips out of a stone that also hit an Asgardian Bull Reed Odin had pointed out.

He jumped into the air, clapping his hands together in excitement, “Faðir, I did it!”

“You did indeed! Thor, Tyr, did you see that?”

The older princes wandered over to see what Loki and Odin were up to, and the golden haired future King of Asgard, Thor, scooped the youngster up to swing him about in victory.

“I did it, Thor! I skimmed the stone!”

Reining in his slight jealousy at Loki’s talent for the game Odin had taught them that day, Thor grinned at his younger brother and laughed, “You did indeed, brother. I believe you won the game today – I certainly would not want you to be aiming a throwing knife at me with accuracy that deadly!” He lowered Loki to the ground and suddenly tagged him on the shoulder, “Mind you, you would have to get somewhere near me first! Come Tyr, let us see if Loki can catch us!”

Odin and Frigga followed the boys up off the shore and watched as they sprinted all around the terraces, taking turns as the one to try to catch the others, and Frigga affectionately linked her arm through that of her King. “You know, Odin, today’s game was an interesting one. Did you notice what it demonstrated, at least it did very clearly to me?”  
“No, my Queen, I saw Thor get moody and Loki get very good at it, but that is all. Please elaborate!”

“Well, it seems to me that your game simply confirmed the differences between the boys in their general behaviour and outlook… and skills… but most of all, I believe it illustrated their natural fighting style.” Frigga felt a slight pause in Odin’s step.

“Go on.”

“Well, Thor for instance. He assumed he already knew what to do, he ploughed in with an awful, brutish attempt which had little to no regard of the consequences and failed to meet the brief. He had to be reminded of the rules and told to calm his temper, which was caused by his not being able to be successful straight away. He is very much like this in the training grounds; Johann has difficulty with him even now!

“Then there was Tyr, although he was able to modify his technique and material a lot quicker than Thor to get nearer to a solution. After a lot of thought and comparison, he managed to get a lot better at the game and he did it in a very calm fashion.

“Lastly, Loki. I watched him copying your method and it is clear he is a gifted mimic, but he is also a very gifted cheat!”  
“Cheat?!” Odin glanced at her as they followed the princes up back towards the Palace.

“Ha! I knew you hadn’t seen. Loki perfected the moves by copying you and he hit the targets because he has an exceptionally keen eye, but he also had the very best stones with which to play the game. Did you not think it odd that there was a concentration of perfect stones right at your feet?” Frigga caught Odin’s eye and her own were twinkling with mirth. Odin pulled a confused face and Frigga laughed as they joined their sons and entered the Palace to go to change for dinner, with the King none the wiser about what she had meant.

Later on that evening, Frigga returned alone to the part of the lake shore where they had spent the afternoon playing and she sighed in amusement; Loki really was going to have to learn perhaps the most important part of casting Seidr lest unscrupulous people who were gifted with The Sight should see this. She waved her hand in the air in large patterns and watched what went on before her. Slowly but surely, the faint blue shimmer that was covering several discarded stones on the shore and many that were submerged in various parts of the lake where Loki had directed them began to fade and eventually disappeared. Frigga smiled to herself; it was more obvious to her than ever that Loki’s battle prowess would not be through brute force, nor would it be through excellent swordsmanship. He was going to be the deadliest warrior on any battlefield simply because of his Seidr; he would only have to think of where he wanted an arrow or a throwing knife to go and the target would be dead before they even knew they had been sighted.

She could only hope that he would never be on the side of the enemy.

**Author's Note:**

> This links directly to the story of the same name in my "Prisoners" series, where Thor reminisces about this very day as he laments the loss of Loki.


End file.
